Nugs.Net Enlists LiveLike To Amp Interactivity As It Moves Concerts Behind Pay Wall
Nugs.Net Enlists LiveLike To Amp Interactivity As It Moves Concerts Behind Pay Wall
Pearl Jam (pictured) and Metallica are among acts whose shows are getting an interactive boost on Nugs.net .
When Nugs.net presents Cage the Elephant in concert January 30, it will debut a host of interactive features thanks to a new deal to integrate LiveLike’s audience engagement technology directly into its music platform.
One of the largest music-based streaming companies with clients including Bruce Springsteen, Pearl Jam, Metallica and Phish, Nugs.net built its business on broadcasting concert pay-per-views. When the live music drought hit, it shifted to presenting primarily free archival shows—some 800 of them including Metallica Mondays, Dinner and a Movie with Phish and Dave Matthews Drive-Ins—on Facebook Live and YouTube.
Now Nugs.net wants to pull the majority of its shows over to its own platform, and bring heightened interactivity—and heightened monetization—with it. The opportunity is ripe, says founder/CEO Brad Serling, both for its growing roster of new concerts and the shows sitting in its sizable vault.
“The eye opener for us was the intensity of the fan interaction during the archival streams we’ve been doing during the pandemic,” says Serling, rattling off stats including a Metallica broadcast that drew 30 million viewers worldwide. A recent show from the Phish vault brought 20,000 fans to their screens, “which is a pretty staggering number for a Tuesday night in January when we’re playing some random show from 2003,” he notes. “That’s a lot of people to be online live interacting with each other.”
While features such as watch parties, chat rooms, active cheer, polling widgets and merch sales will be baked into all new shows beginning with Cage, Serling says the lockdown also opened a tremendous opportunity for legacy acts to interact with fans around heritage shows—and some of the biggest bands Nugs.net works with are evaluating new options.
“It’s made artists realize they can still connect with fans in a meaningful way without actually being on tour. It’s incredible for them that they have this legacy, and it’s a great way to make money if we pull it behind the pay wall. That’s the key difference. A band may have 30 million followers on Facebook, but they are not going to get paid for doing a livestream there.”
Unlike other streaming companies that operate as third parties, Nugs.net secures performance rights directly from the artists it works with, and pays them directly. “The artist is our client,” Serling says. “This [move] allows bands to exploit their archives and add an additional revenue stream to the live concert experience. Nothing is more valuable to a band than three hours in a room with their fans.”
Enter LiveLike, which powers social interaction around media, entertainment and sporting events small and massive, including the Super Bowl, FIFA World Cup, NBA playoffs and Presidential and Vice Presidential debate broadcasts. Serling says not only does the LiveLike’s technology integrate seamlessly into the Nugs.net platform, but he felt comfortable it could carry the weight of big-time traffic.
“I was impressed by the size of the events they’ve done,” Serling says. “You can’t go live with a band like Metallica or Pearl Jam and have the chat feature crash.”
Nugs.net is LiveLike’s first big music deal. “As we kick off 2021, it is more evident than ever that fans crave new ways to connect with each other around live events they love—something we have seen time and time again with sports, and which translates perfectly to music,” says Miheer Walavalkar, LiveLike co-founder and CEO. “Virtual concerts have exploded in popularity, and now that we have seen what is possible, this space will continue to grow, well beyond the pandemic.”
BUY-IN FROM LEGACY ARTISTS
With the LiveLike deal in place, Serling and his team are cooking up activations including an artist or member of a band’s team—from an archivist to a sound engineer—hanging out in live chat during a show.
“In the Phish and Grateful Dead world, key members of the crew are almost as famous the band members,” he says. “LiveLike allows us to have the superstars in the community interact with the fans while the stream is happening, whether the band is actually playing live or we’re broadcasting something from the archives.”
Walavalkar concurs influencers could be big drivers of social interaction. “We want to elevate their existing experience into a more communal experience. Each artist is going to want something different, and our goal is to empower the platforms.” he says.
New Nugs.net client Jimmy Buffett, for one, “had always done simulcasts on Margaritaville Radio on Sirius XM SIRI -2.2% but had never monetized any of the audio or video recordings of the shows. Now we’re rolling out 30 years worth of shows and he’s interested in hopping into some of the rebroadcasts we do and saying hi to fans,” Serling says.
Other conversations around archival shows are opening up.
“Same for Pearl Jam. They’ve been a client for 20 years, and they never wanted to do any video, ever. It took the complete cancellation of their world tour for them to agree to start doing video with us. They haven’t done anything live yet but they allowed us to go into archives. I can’t commit they’re going to [jump on chat], but we’d love it.”
For an artist like Metallica drummer Lars Ulrich, jumping in could be an easy sell.
Ulrich prerecorded short introductions for each of the 26 Metallica Monday shows. “He would record himself in the studio shooting the shit about the show we were about to broadcast,” Serling says. “But that was a one-way thing, he wasn’t actually interacting with the fans. But now with LiveLike, we could actually have Lars sit in the chat room when we do a rebroadcast of something. That’s now an option.”
Upcoming from Nugs.net is a February 12 broadcast of a Pearl Jam home show in Seattle from August 2018, and the new Island Time Music Festival, February 24-27, featuring Vince Gill, Lee Brice and LoCash.
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